Galahad Clark

He says shoes are bad for you although he's a seventh-generation cobbler of the Clarks shoe dynasty. But despite his disapproval of footwear (although he's still a shareholder at Clarks), he founded pioneering brand United Nude, with its experimental architectural designs, and is now focused on Vivobarefoot: ultra-thin soles for maximum sensory feedback ('we were born to walk barefoot', he says). And to prove his point, he completed the New York marathon shoe-less. Comedian Eddie Izzard is a fan; he ran 27 marathons in 27 days, sometimes wearing Vivobarefoots. Clark's research has taken him from the Kalahari - where he studied the running techniques of the last persistent hunters - to northern Finland where he learnt about reindeer-moccasin shoemaking among the Sami. With design studios in Dongguan, China, a factory planned in Addis Ababa, and 19 concept stores from London to Ljubljana, Clark is more often than not tramping the world, wearing his own brand of Trackers, which he calls the lightest, most flexible hiking boot.

This feature first appeared in Condé Nast Traveller January/February 2017